Day #190-195: When you have nowhere to be then be guided by your heart.

We had booked 3 nights in London as part of our airfare deal, before leaving Brisbane.  We had randomly picked some dates  thinking there would line up with our return from the Continent.  However plans had been adjusted along the way and now this accommodation seemed to be hanging in time.

Morag had applied for some house sits near London that fitted in with the 5 day gap in our plans, but remarkably(!) we were passed over, and so we headed for the Scottish Highlands again.  Well not quite, but Aberdeen at least.  When booking our Eurostar tickets we also booked a connecting train from London to Aberdeen thinking we would have few more days with the Scottish side of the family before the weather turned too cold.

But then it snowed in Aberdeen.

Luckily that first fall of snow didn’t last long and when we arrived it was unseasonable warm which we took full credit for saying we had bought our sunny Queensland dispositions with us.

So day #190 was a day of train travel with us leaving Paris early and arriving in Aberdeen quite late.

Jim and Marjory had a warm welcome and hot drink waiting for us.   Our trip to Aberdeen was brief.  As we told the locals, we were there for a good time but not for a long time, and they possibly breathed a sigh of relief to hear that as they thought they had seen the end of us after we stirred up their summer with our visit.  We were there long to enjoy more walks along the Prom, lots of laughter and chatter and to visit  Uncle Sandy on the morning of his 89th birthday.   One of the joys of this trip has been to spend time with family members that we have had so little contact with over the years because of the tyranny of distance.

Another joy of this trip has been to make new friends and also reconnect with others. Using the power of Facebook, Morag had made contact with Iain who she had worked with at the Children’s Hospital in Adelaide in 1986. Iain is Scottish and he and his Irish girlfriend Katie were married in Adelaide November 1986 and we were among the lucky people to share the day with them.

Ahh – the fashions of the 1980’s might have us shaking our heads now, but we were wonderful and let no one try and say otherwise.  That is Katie and Iain off-centre in the first photo, with Dean and I looking dapper at the right of the second.  Oh, to be so young again and still know what we know now.

After a trip around Australia, including a stopover with Morag’s parents  in North Queensland that they remember fondly, Katie and Iain returned to Scotland and worked in the Outer Hebrides and at some stage we lost contact as children and life became busier.

While in Aberdeen we picked up another hire car and day #193 saw us head for the north-east of Scotland to Stanraer in the south-west, to visit our long lost but now re-found friends.

Our drive to Stanraer was memorable as we seemed to strike all possible weather from sunshine to high winds, driving rain and even sleet.  The last few miles along the coast even saw waves breaking over the road.

But it all proved worth it when reached Katie and Iain’s. Iain is still the lovely quite gentle man we met 30 years ago and Katie’s generous spirit seems to have just grown over the years.  They are still as in love as they were and have 4 beautiful children, the youngest two who are teenagers and we were lucky enough to meet.  Katie and I bonded as Mothers of daughters who are off teaching English in far flung foreign countries, and we were both on a countdown of the days until our respective girls would be with us again.

Stanraer  lies on the shores of Loch Ryan, on the northern side of the isthmus joining the Rhins of Galloway to the mainland.  It is on the same latitude as Carlisle, so is south of many towns in England.   Ferries go from nearby Portpatrick to Belfast and Katie said when the crossing is calm she can be in Belfast shopping with her sisters quicker then she can drive to Glasgow.  Portpatrick is as close as you can be to Ireland but still be standing on Scottish soil so this area is a great spot for this lovely pair and their family.

Iain had to work the but Katie acted as our tour guide with the first stop being the local hospital to see Iain’s Radiology Department which he was involved in designing.  Katie and Iain both work at the hospital and are obviously valued members of the medical service and the community.

It was then on to the Mull of Galloway and Portpatrick before the weather forced us home for shelter.

Our visit to this area was much too short, but catching up with Katie and Iain after all these years made up for not having time to see more of the area.  Before leaving, we spent some time convincing them that a trip to Australia for a reunion with all their Aussie friends was in order. We hope in a couple of years we may be returning their hospitality.

Noci, Cinghiale and Pecarino.

Despite having exchanged many emails with Jann, the owner of the Magli house, just a day before arriving we discovered there was a vital piece information we were missing:  the address and instructions on how to get into the house.  A frantic series of emails to Jann who was in transit to Australia ensured and we were very impressed with ourselves to have managed to get within 10km of our destination when Jann sent us the details we needed.  Upon arrival we were to call a local couple Ron and Ianthe who had been in earlier to turn on the heating and would let us in.  Our attempts to call Ianthe and Ron failed but we were saved by our next door neighbours, elderly Pasquelina and her daughter Maria Assunta.  They  invited us into their home and poured us glasses of their homemade Limoncello liqueur to sip while she called Eric.  Eric is a Dutch architect, but has relocated with his wife and family to Italy for the lifestyle.  Instead of practising architecture, he now works as a builder and site supervisor in the area.  As he has done work for Robert and Jann, he had access to a key and let us in after translating a conversation between Pasquelina, Maria Assunta and ourselves.  Later we had a visit from Ron and Ianthe who had run into Eric in town.  What could have seemed a disaster all turned out well.

When we had parked our car, Pasquelina in ever increasing volume and much gesture indicated we should close the gates to the property.  We understood “Senora Roberto” and her showing us how to close the gates but the explanation  also involved noci and cinghiale.  Neither of these words made any sense to us but Pasquelina was insistent and who were we to argue?

The next day Morag encountered Pasquelina collecting walnuts that had fallen from the roadside trees.  Noci, noci she explained so now we had half the puzzle solved.  Walking around Robert and Jann’s property revealed they had 3 walnut trees, one mature one and 2 smaller and there were many windfall walnuts on the ground.  Collecting these and drying them on the terrace became a ritual during our stay and on Robert and Jann’s arrival a couple of weeks later we were able to present them with several plastic shopping bags brimming with walnuts.

The first walnuts Morag collected she shared with Pasquelina who then took Morag on a tour of her garden and Morag came home with vegetables, grapes and herbs in abundance.  Much was said by Pasquelina during this garden tour but it was all lost on Morag.  Still the sharing of what we have is understood in all languages.

A Google search using possible variation of how you could spell cinghiale eventually revealed that they are wild boar that roam the forests of Italy and France and create havoc in vineyards and gardens.   Walnuts are a particular favourite of these beasts.  Cinghiale meat features on many menus, usually as a ragu sauce over pasta or in salamis.  Towards the end of our visit, the hunting season had started and men with guns over their shoulders would be wandering around the fields and hillsides accompanied by dogs, often English setters, and although we heard gunshots we never saw any evidence that their hunting efforts had been successful.  It seemed like a good excuse to get out with friends as much as anything.

See also: how to handle an encounter with a cinghiale.

Another local product was cheese made from the milk of sheep that grazed on the surrounding hills.  This cheese is called pecorino, but something was lost in translation when we went into a local cheese shop and when we would point to any cheese in the cabinet and ask what it was we would be told pecorino even though they all looked different.  What we needed to ask was what sort of pecorino it was; soft, mature, vintage.  No matter it was all very acceptable.

Day #171: Cinque Terre

Well, that brings us to the end of our time in Italy.  Onwards to France!

We booked our next accommodation, then remembered we had intended to visit the Cinque Terre before we left Italy.  As we hadn’t left time to actually walk the path between the 5 villages, a quick internet search revealed that the fastest way to get around the Cinque Terre was by train.  We envisaged a jolly-good seaside train trip, as we had experienced in England and Wales.  Here’s Dean enjoying the trip.

Unfortunately, what the website didn’t explain, was that 99% of the train track along the Cinque Terre is inside tunnels.  A minor detail.  And the train, instead of a romantic period seaside train, was a dilapidated modern train with graffiti and slashed seats.

With limited time, we elected to travel the length of the Cinque Terre from La Spezia to Monterosso, where we disembarked to spend an hour or so.  Google Maps satellite photos of Monterosso show a resort town populated with a large number of beach umbrellas.  What we found was a near ghost town with only one bar and one gelati shop open, and not a solitary beach umbrella in sight.  It seems that once November 1 has arrived, the tourist season has officially ended, and the villages revert to a normal sleepy Italian lifestyle.

Further research has revealed that a more scenic means to visit the Cinque Terre is from the water using local ferries, and it is from the water that most of the stereotypical photos of the area are taken.

Note to prospective visitors: walk one direction between the villages, and catch the ferry the other way.  The villages are only about 2 hours walk between them, which is probably do-able by most people.

Day #161-166: Firenze/Florence

Leaving Rome we retrieved our car from the airport longterm carpark and headed north.  The exercise of getting from the hotel to the train station, then by train to the airport, then shuttle bus to the carpark really ate into the day and so any plans of sightseeing along the way had to be filed for another trip as our destination was Florence or Firenze to the Italians.

In Firenze, our hosts were Maria Rita and Alessio who, with their little boys, 4-year-old Duccio and 4-month-old Leoni, open their home to tourists.

It is quite an amazing home as it is one of 11 apartments that have been created in a 12th century monastery.  The exterior has a Madonna and Child fresco in a corner alcove and Maria Rita explained that a couple of times a year people still gather to prayer to the Virgin Mary and bring offerings of flowers and candles.  The double doors are their front door.

The interior is an eclectic mix of their decorating blending with 900 years of heritage.  We had the first floor which was a big room with its own bathroom.  Each time I climbed the worn stone stairs to our room I wondered who else had climbed these stairs in all those years and what were their stories.

Marie Rita is on maternity leave from her job in hotel management.  She is regularly visited by her mother who loves nearby, and an elderly neighbour called Patrichia, so Morag fitted in quite well as another nonna doting over the two boys.

Day #162 saw as abandon our car in favour of a bus to central Firenze.  In a strange city, Google Maps on your smartphone is your best friend – it’s coverage of public transport is more accessible than many public transport websites.  If you track you position as the bus moves, it will also help you tell when to get off!

One of the first things that we stumbled over was Il Duomo di Firenze, more correctly known as Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.  It is is one of Italy’s Big Three (Il Duomo, Tower of Pisa, Colosseum).

The cathedral, built between 1296 and 1436 by a number of architects including Filippo Brunelleschi, is truly enormous, standing at 153m x 90m, with a 114.5m dome.  It’s size is even more daunting when crowded into the maze of twisty little streets that is central Firenze – people with ordinary cameras just can’t hope to take it all in.

The dome itself actually has an outer and inner dome, and was an engineering marvel of its day.  It is claimed that a young Leonardo da Vinci worked on it.  Provided you are patient, moderately fit, and not disabled or claustrophobic, it is possible to climb the dome by 463 stairs built between the double dome for an unsurpassed view of Firenze.

This climb also affords unrivaled views of the frescos that adorn the inside of the dome.  These frescos, started in 1568 by Giorgio Vasari and completed by Federico Zuccari in 1579 cover a staggering 3,600m².  In comparison, the more famous ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is around 600m².

To help set the scale, the rectangular patch of blue in the bottom-right corner of the picture is a doorway.

Another big thing in Firenze that is well-worth a visit is the Uffizi art gallery, begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I de Medici, and finally completed in 1581.  Uffizi is the  home to an impressive collection of art by the likes of Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci.Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli.

Day #163 saw us again brave the Firenze buses to the Galleria dell’Accedemia to visit Firenze‘s most famous of all residents, Michelangelo’s David.

I think everyone knows David.  Michelangelo carved him in 1501-4, and at 5.17m, he’s a very big boy indeed.  However, you, like me, may be unaware that David was originally intended to be one of twelve Old Testament statues that were to grace the roof of Il Duomo.  Once carved, the 6-ton statue was too heavy to be lifted to the top of the cathedral, and instead it was located it in the Piazza della Signoria.  Reportedly, it took 4 days to move the statue from Michelangelo’s studio to the piazza, where it remained until 1873, when it was moved to a specially built gallery in the Accademia, where it is can still be seen today.

That evening, we also walked the Ponte Vecchio (literally, the Old Bridge), the medieval bridge across the Fiume Arno, which is famed for having shops built along it.  Once upon a time, these were butcher shops, now they are mostly jewelers selling things without prices (if you have to ask the price …).

We enjoyed the sights, avoided the worst of the crowds, and took refuge in a bar at the end of Ponte Vecchio from a sudden downpour to enjoy one of Morag’s favourite afternoon activities: a Spritz Aperol.

This time also allowed us to continue looking for Banchory Show Umbrellas (BSUs).  BSU spotting has become a bit of a theme for our travels, and the reason for the One for Jim page of this blog.

On day #164, we were once again on the buses.  Honestly, I will never complain again about bus drivers in Australia after experiencing Firenze bus drivers, who seem to have two speeds: flat out and stopped.  If you’re not standing at the exit door before the bus gets to your stop, then you probably won’t make out it in time.  It’s scary watching nonnas swinging from hand holds as the bus accelerates and brakes sharply.

Today, we ventured out to visit the Basilica di Santa Croce, (Basilica of the Holy Cross) another amazing church, begun in 1294, and located on the similarly named Piazza di Santa Croce.

The basilica houses the holy cross that gives it its name: the Cruxifix by Cimabue, created in 1265 but badly damaged in a major flood of 1966.  The basilica also houses a number of significant artworks, as well as the funerary monuments for various celebrities including Dante, Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo, Guglielmo Marconi and Enrico Fermi.

Actually, the monument to Michelangelo is sad.  I recall learning that Michelangelo had carved a statue for his own grave.  We’ve seen the statue somewhere in our travels, but for the life of me I cannot remember, and the internet has failed to help.  Perhaps the Vatican Museum or Uffizi?  Perhaps one of our learned and traveled readers can remind me.

Once a year, the piazza di Santa Croce is host to giuoco del calcio fiorentino (literally Florentine kick game) or simply calcio, a game from medieval times that is a cross between soccer and boxing.  The official rules were first published in 1580, but the modern game permits 27-player sides and tactics such as head-butting, punching, elbowing, and choking.  You can follow the link above if you want the details.

During afternoon tea in the piazza del duomo, we overheard some English visitors talking about Piazzale Michelangelo.  A bus ride from the city over the Arno and up the hill through the villas to then alight to the most beautiful view of this elegant city at sunset.

On day #165, we became real tourists and signed up for a long day tour.  We were picked up at 7am and taken to a central sorting point and then organised on to our bus for the day when our destinations were Pisa, San Gimignano , lunch at a winery and then Sienna before returning to Firenza well after dark.  It was a whirlwind tour but the only way we were going to cover these places.  However it did mean we had limited time in each place, so while we have visited we couldn’t say we explored.

Apart from the Cathederal Square of which the Leaning Tower is the bell tower there seemed to be little to see of Pisa.  If we had had longer climbing the Tower might have been a worthwhile exercise  but with the long queue and our limited time it wasn’t an option.  Our lasting impression of Pisa will be of what appeared to be a mass Tai Chi class as people posed for photos.

San Gimignano in Tuscany is the centre of the chianti wine region, and is like many of the hilltop towns that we visited around Magli: a series of snailshell like narrow winding streets leading to a central piazza.  However, San Gimignano is renowned for its towers, a symbol of affluent families, although there are few left after earthquakes and World War II.

We were then shuttled to a winery for a late lunch, then onto Sienna, by which time it was getting dark.  A local guide gave us a quick walking tour, which included description of the annual horse race in the square, followed by a compulsory visit to the cathedral.

Italian Time

Many tourists to Italy do not have the opportunity to get off the well-trodden tourist path, and are never exposed to living in Italian time.

Rural Italy seems to move at a different pace and clock time doesn’t seem so relevant.  Our 3½ weeks at Magli seemed to slip by as our paced slowed to match the local lifestyle.  Work begins earlier than is the norm in Australia: perhaps 7:30 to 8:00.  We found that shops opened at 9 or 10am depending on the owner and would close again at 12 or 1pm so that most owners and employees could go home for lunch.  Business will reopen at 3 to 5pm and then close for the day at 8pm.  Even the builders working on the house next door downed tools at this time and would resume work some hours later having eaten.  Workers unable to return home for lunch would eat on the spot, then sleep anywhere they can for a hour or two.  One day, we saw two young workers purchase a loaf a bread, some sliced meat and cheese, and a bottle of wine from a supermarket for their lunch.  The checkout man kindly produced a corkscrew and opened the wine for them as they paid for it, so this was obviously a normal practice.

Schools begin at 8:00 to 8:30 and close around 12:30 or 1:00pm, six days a week.  Italian schools do not have a canteen, as school children eat lunch at home with their families.

The exception to this rule that everything closes for lunch is bars and restaurants who will be open to serve lunch and for people to meet and chat.  Lunch is served from 1pm until 3pm and then dinner won’t be being served in restaurants until after 8pm. It wasn’t unusual to see large family groups (including children) arrive at restaurants at 9pm for dinner.  Note to any would-be travelers: if you arrive at a restaurant for dinner prior to 8pm, you may find it closed while the restaurant staff have their own meal.

3pm to 5pm is a good time to enjoy an aperitif  and Morag has become quite fond of a daily Spritz Aperol, a mix of Aperol Campari, Prosecco (an Italian sparkling white wine) and soda water served over ice and slices of orange.  http://www.aperol.com/int/en/aperol-world/product/cocktails  When you order a drink you are also served a range of nibbles, usually a bowl of chips, some nuts, even bruschetta so after two rounds of drinks and you may not need dinner.  In rural Italy, this afternoon aperitif is outrageously inexpensive, sometimes as little as €3.50.(The Spritz Aperol is on the left: the other drink is a chinotto).

Every town seemed to have a Bar Centrale which was the meeting place for groups of elderly men to play cards.   We had a drink in one bar and where 4 men were playing cards and 8 others looked on giving advice and between them they seemed to have bought 3 or 4 coffees.  In small villages, these bars also function as a community centre, and is the place for locals to swap news and information during their lunch break or at the end of their day before dinner.

We saw many many public clocks during our travels, but few that worked, or if they did, they displayed the incorrect time by hours not just minutes.  Rural life seemed to run by its own clock set by the seasons and the urgency of the situation.  However, there is rarely any urgency to any situation, and perhaps there is something for us all to learn from that.

Day #133-156: Magli

At long last, we’ve reached the destination of our travels.

Of course, every place is a destination (and every trip between two places a Journey), but Magli is the destination of our travels in the sense that after here, we turn around and begin the equally long homeward journey.  Damn, there’s the “J” word again.

Magli (pronounced ma-yee), is a tiny community of maybe 20 houses in Le Marche, Macerata (pronounced le mar-kay, ma-cher-a-ta) in central Italy, and as you can tell from the heading, we spent about 3½ weeks there.

Where is Le Marche?  We were asked this many times before we left Australia.  Le Marche is lesser known than neighbouring Tuscany and Umbria, but could be argued to be one of Italy’s undiscovered treasures.  If you think of a map of Italy and think of it as a leg in a high heeled boot, than Le Marche would be the area at the back of the knee.

Magli isn’t really anywhere: it’s at the end of a road that doesn’t go anywhere else.  You will find it on Google Maps, but you won’t find it on paper maps of Le Marche.  It’s just one of those blank places on the map that they used to write Here be dragons in days gone by.  No dragons, but maybe cinghaile, but that’s a story for another day.

So, you’re asking, how did we wind up there?  Why Magli?  Well it chose us rather than we choosing it.

As Morag loves to say, be kind to your children’s friends.  In this case, to a university friend of our daughter.  Within 24 hours of us signing contracts to sell our family home in Brisbane, James posted a message on Facebook asking if anyone would be interested in a month over summer in his parent’s house in Italy: a hard offer to say no to.

James’ parents, Jann and Robert, lead an itinerant lifestyle, having worked at high positions in international schools around the globe.  James did journalism at the same time as our Ruth, and our sofa became a sort of sofa-away-from-home for James. Jann and Robert are currently in Romania, but have previously worked and lived in Rome, when they decided they wanted to buy a place in Italy.  They wanted to be north of Rome and east of the mountain ranges of Monti Sibillini so it wasn’t too hot, but south of Milan so it wasn’t too cold; and it had to have a view.  Three years of  searching and they found Casa Magli.  When they bought it, Casa Magli was a small holding of farm out-buildings – not really a farmhouse, more like a pig-sty, a cow barn and a pile of rubble – which they have lovingly renovated and converted over the last ten years.  In the coming years, Casa Magli will become their retirement home, but in the meantime, they spend school breaks there, and let it to interested parties at other times.

I’m not going to bore with a day-by-day description of the comings and goings at Magli – after many, many months of traveling, it was good to just be somewhere, and for a while, pretending to be Italian.  The following is a short list of our more notable adventures in the area, but given time, there will be subsequent postings about our adventures in Italy for you to enjoy or endure.

• visiting the local (and larger) communites of Penna San Giovanni, Gualdo, Sarnano, San Ginesio and San Angelo in Pontano;
• slightly longer journeys to Macerata, Loreto and Ascoli Piceno;
• Assisi, to see the Basilica di San Francesco (St. Francis); and
• Urbino, to see the Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca, rated by many to be the best small painting in the world.

Here, I will just leave you with some pictures of the location and the changing moods of Magli. and it’s view to the Parco Nazionale dei Monti Sibillini.

Our accommodation: the guest house.  A single bedroom over a kitchen to the left (ex cow barn) and a lounge to the right (ex pig sty).

Casa Magli at sunset.  As you can see, the renovation work continues, even after 10 years!

Day #129-133: Lake Como

We’ve tackled Flemish, Dutch, French and German in our travels.  Next? Italiano!

Leaving Zug we set our GPS for Lezzeno, on the edge of Lake Como in northern Italy.  Zug was a chilly 12º when we left late morning, and the sky was initially gray and heavy with clouds, but cleared the further south we went.  Along the way we stopped and admired the views of Lake Lucerne as we passed, which were beautiful and enhanced by the freshly snow-capped mountains that towered above. It had snowed overnight on the high Alps further enhancing the view.We think that this was taken from Morschach on the eastern shore.

At this stage, we were agreed that the Swiss vignette (motorway toll tag) was a bargain at 40CHF.  Check it out: Google Maps says Zug to Lezzeno using the Swiss motorways (tolls) takes 3:11, but 5:27 without and some of the roads over the mountains were already marked as being icy and dangerous.  The motorway route incorporated 46 tunnels through the Alps, including the massive Gotthard Tunnel at 16.9km (eat your heart out, Campbell Newman).  The other thing we did was try to spend our Swiss Francs before we crossed the border, especially the coins.  We almost achieved our goal and stocked up on groceries ready for our next few days.

Finally, we emerged into Italy to find the temperature had more then doubled to a pleasant 25º, everything was much cheaper (almost half in some cases), but the roads were not as good and the Italian drivers were a considerable challenge after the well-mannered Germans and Swiss.

Lake Como is a huge body of water (146sq km) stretched out in three arms like an upside-down “Y”, surrounded by high mountains and circled by a narrow road lined with villages.  We had booked in to self-catering accommodation called House of Siren at Lezzeno between the city of Como and the town of  Bellagio.  After a white knuckle ride at Italian peak-hour, we found our way to within a block of our destination and our host Siren happily came to our rescue to show us her driveway.

Dean had displayed nerves of steel negotiating this drive and but was very happy to park the car knowing he would not have to face sliding behind the wheel again for a couple of days.  We are driving a medium-sized Peugeot 308 station wagon, but in Italy, it is considered a large car.  With the streets around Lake Como barely wide enough for two cars to pass. let alone trucks and buses, then it is understandable why most locals choose tiny cars.  Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to think about how much clearance there was between the side of the car and that stone wall whizzing past outside the passenger window,

Our flat was the upper floor of Siren’s house, fully-self contained and everything we could need for a wonderful stay.  To say every room had a view was an understatement: even the loo had a view.  The views were stunning and we looked across the lake at a house we were told had been used in a James Bond movie which was only fitting given the James-Bond-like drive we had getting there.  It was evidence that you don’t need to be a millionaire to enjoy Lake Como.

Needless to say we did little but enjoy the view and catch up on washing for the first day.  There was no need to go anywhere else except to venture 100 metres down the hill to the lakeside Crotto dei Pescatori, our local restaurant, for dinner of some of the nicest pasta ever.

A bus service stopped just outside our door, so the next day we ventured down the road to the local bar – part coffee shop, part bar, part general store, part community centre – and bought return tickets to Como.  Como is the major town on the lake and even though it isn’t a big town (population of approximately 85,000) but it was bustling with tourists, as it has done for hundreds of years.  We wandered along the edge of the lake stopping to watch speed boat races …

… while enjoying beer and pizza at a lakeside cafe.

Following lunch, we walked to the funicular base station for a ride up the mountain to Brunate, a small village about 500m above Como.  From here you can begin to appreciate just how big the lake …

…is however you are probably too high to appreciate just how beautiful it is; to do this you need to be on the water.

Sitting at a hilltop cafe enjoying a drink all that could upset our mood was a group of Americans complaining that there were no Starbucks outlets in Italy!  This, the home of the espresso machine and they want Starbucks!  Oh well we all yearn for something familiar at times when we travel.

Back down to Como we wandered around the main part of town where a market was in progress but finding the crowds too much we retreated back to the lakeside for dinner before catching the bus back to our lovely apartment.

The next day we caught the bus in the other direction to Bellagio, which is also well setup for tourists but not nearly as crowded as Como.  It is a lovely place to just stroll and enjoy outdoor cafes and relax.

Lake Como is renowned for the beautiful villas that surround it but we didn’t visit any as we were feeling we were “Castle, Manor House, Chateau”ed out.  Instead we took to the water and caught one of the ferries that traverse the length of the lake stopping at the towns and villages that dot its shores.  The ferries come in very fast, fast and slow modes depending on the type of boat on each route.  We rode a fast ferry to Colico at the northern end of the lake enjoying the ever changing view and weather along the way.

This was still only September, but sadly many places were closed up as they are only used as holiday homes for a couple of months each year and sadly others were in a state of disrepair waiting for the next cashed-up owner to restore them to their former glory.

We had a anxious (anxiety fueled by not being able to read Italian and so not sure if we understood the bus timetable correctly) and long (seemed buses ran infrequently on weekends after a certain time) wait so were relieved to catch the last bus back past Lezzeno that evening.  Knowing what a challenge the roads were in daylight we could be very grateful to the bus drivers skill maneuvering a bus along the narrow windy road in the dark.  The wait was longer than it would have taken to walk from Bellagio to Lezzeno, but, with no footpaths, we would have been risking life and limb to share the road with cars, and this just didn’t seem wise.

We could have stayed here much longer and Siren did kindly offer that option as she had no more guests due for a week or more but we had our next destination waiting for us.  We didn’t see any movie stars but we fell in love with this beautiful place where anyone with a pair of sunglasses could imagine they were movie stars, at least for a day.  The lake is amazingly clean, and fisherman catch fresh fish for restaurants every day.  Siren said they had still been swimming in the lake just a week before we arrived.

Day #126-129: Lucerne/Luzern

Day #126 saw us leave our previous accommodation at Malsburg-Marzell and continue on our south-easterly direction towards Lucerne in Switzerland.

First up was a brief stop in Lörrach, a small town right on the German-Swiss border for a coffee, a stretch of the legs, and to refuel the car before entering expensive Switzerland.  It’s a pretty town with a pretty square, and the cafe where we ate had these nifty tables.

Morag also picked up a couple of books from a man with a stall in the square.  She noticed he had a copy of Wolf Hall in English and as she had meant to read it ages ago picked it up.  The book seller was so excited he produced all six English language books he had in stock and was very pleased when we walked away having bought 4 of them.

At the border, we diverted by Swiss border control to buy a vignette (permit) to drive on Swiss motorways for 40 Swiss Francs (CHF).  You can drive through Switzerland without using the motorways, it just takes a lot longer.  It is also possible to drive on the motorways without a vignette, it just attracts a 200CHF fine, plus the cost of a vignette. We were grateful to Nigel and Helen from Malsburg-Marzell for warning us.  Nigel was a touchy about this: Germans don’t pay to drive on motorways!  The permit is 40 CHF per calendar year no matter when in the year you buy it, is not transferable between vehicles and once place on the windscreen must not be moved.  Dean peeled the back off our under the instruction of a stern Swiss guard and the thing stuck itself to not the most  convenient spot and that is where it had to stay.

Lucerne was only a little over an hour from the border, so we headed straight for the tourist information office located at the main railway station, with lunch first at the adjoining culture centre.  Lucerne looked truly wonderful in such perfect weather – it was a shame that we wasted it traveling!

As an astute reader will have noted, our B&Bs are often outside our actually destination, and this was no exception: our B&B was located at Zug, about 30 minutes drive away from Lucerne.  Or so we thought.  After some confusion which included trying to decipher driving instructions that were in Swiss-German (one of the terms was god fearing), we discovered that our accommodation was actually at Zugerberg, a mountain overlooking Zug and Lake Zug.  The Zugerbergbahn funicular connects the Zugerberg to Zug, with the upper station at 925 metres, but we drove up the god fearing road!  This was the view when we finally got there.

Who would have thought!  It sure beat staying in Lucerne – as nice as that city is – hands down!  Our BnB stay was with Kalina in a flat over the top of the funicular station.

Day #127 say us up uncharacteristically early, as we had pre-arranged a walking tour of Lucerne that started at 9:30, and it was going to take a while to get there.  Faced with the god fearing road, we elected to take public transport to Lucerne, and were supprised to find that we could purchase a single ticket covering the Zugerbergbahn, Zug local bus and Swiss Rail to Lucerne.

Swiss Rail was expectedly efficient, as was our tour guide who showed us the delights of central Lucerne.

The following are a couple of highlights.

The octagonal Wasserturm (Water Tower), built around 1300, with the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge), built in the14 century, behind.  Both formed part of the cities fortifications.

The Nadelwehr (Needle Dam), built in 1859 to manually regulate the level of Lake Lucerne by the insertion or removal of wooden “needles”, is still used today.  In the background, to the left, is the Spreuerbrücke (Chaff Bridge), built in 1408, which contains an extensive series of macabre paintings from the 1600’s, used  to remind the illiterate locals of the time of their impermanent existence (this one is #32).

One of the beautifully decorated buildings of the Weinmarkt (Wine Market).  Lake Lucerne is a very clean body of water fed from mountain springs and snow from the Alps.  Our guide pointed out some of the many (over 200) fountains dotted around Lucerne and said all were fed from mountain springs and the water was safe to drink so there was never a reason to buy bottled water in Lucerne as you can fill yur wter bottle on almost every corner.

It was lucky for us that the tour finished only slightly over-time, as we were able to scuttle off, grab some lunch, and meet up with our next tour to Mount Pilatus, or dragon mountain, which overlooks Lucerne and it’s lake.  The tour took us:

• by tourist coach to the base station at Kriens;
• by a 25-minute cableway ride to Fräkmüntegg (4649ft);
• by a 10-minute gondola ride to Pilatus Kulm, the hotel at the top of Mount Pilatus (~6900 ft);
• by a 40-minute cogwheel railway ride (the world’s steepest);
• by a 50-minute cruise ship ride on Lake Lucerne.

We had time at Pilatus Kulm to eat lunch and enjoy the outstanding views, but sadly we had come on the wrong day (literally, we should have been there the day before), as the dragon had his head in the clouds.These were the gondola cables, disappearing into the clouds.

This was Pilatus Kulm, itself clear of cloud, but unfortunately the views on both side were completely obscured.  The picture was taken from Esel (6953ft), one of the summits of Mount Pilatus.  In the background at the right, partially obscured by cloud, is Oberhaupt (6913ft), marked by a cross.  Mount Pilatus was fantastic and well recommended, especially if the weather is clear!

This was one of the outlook information boards, telling us all about what we might have seen.

Given we had taken 3 types of transport to reach the top of Mount Pilatus imagine our astonishment to see a Vladamir Putin look-a-like striding up a  rocky path to the mountain top.  As we huddled, wrapped in our coats against the wind he appeared out of the clouds, bare chested with his shirt tucked into his belt, striding along looking very impressed with himself.

By the time we completed this tour, had dinner in Lucerne, then made our way back to Zugerberg by train, bus and funicular, we were a couple of very tired bunnies, and went straight to bed.  For dinner we had thought we would have Fondue.  What could be more Swiss than Fondue but were bemused to be told by a restaurateur that it wasn’t cold enough for Fondue but maybe the day after tomorrow they would start serving it.  As it had only reached a chilly 11º that day we wondered how cold it had to be before the Swiss would serve melted cheese on bread and we wondered what was significant about “the day after tomorrow”.  A quick google search revealed that day to be the Autumn Equinox and the official start of the Fondue season .

Lucerne is a very international city and you can hear accents from all over the world there, even Australians who are there working in banking and other industries. Zugerburg has a bilingual German/English school and many children attending have British, American, Australian accents.

On day #128, we repeated the trip back to Lucerne, but drove.  All the tourist information says that it is hard and expensive to find car-parking in Lucerne, but we found neither of these to be true as there was plenty of space in the underground parking at the Bahnhof (central train station), and the cost of around €16 was considerably cheaper than public transport for two people from Zugerberg (over 40€ each), and possibly a tad more time-efficient.

Being a little bit tired from the previous day and again having to dodge showers, we had an easy day and only visited the Sammlung Rosengart, a public museum displaying the previously private collection of Angela Rosengart including Pablo Picasso (32 works) and Paul Klee (125 works), plus some others like Monet, Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir, Kandinsky.  Again, it was a museum with a no-photography policy, so: no pictures for you.

The close of day #128 saw us successful in a search for a fondue for dinner.  It seems some restaurants in Lucerne started serving early  this item of traditional (and cheap!) Swiss cooking.

Day #129 had us departing Zugerberg to continue our adventure.  The view from our B&B included Mount Pilatus, which had snow on it.  It had snowed overnight on most of the high Alps leaving clear skies but the lower areas and lakes blanketed in morning clouds.That’s Pilatus on the left, and yes, it was cold that morning – I think it made 10° by midday.

On our way out, we thought we should spend a little time in Zug, so we had a wander around and stopped for morning tea at this cafe which was celebrating 100 years of the Zuger Kirchtorte.

It took us a little while to understand that this was a kirsche torte, and that kirsche was the product of Zug.  Who would have guessed?

That’s the Zuger Kirschtorte on the table, and the menu that Morag is holding is a list of the varieties and vintages of kirsche that you can enjoy at the cafe, some back to the 1940’s.  The food and drink menus are the other menus on the table to the right.

Finally: a tip for prospective visitors to Lucerne: finding a toilet can be a challenge, with many Lucerne businesses jealously guarding their toilets against unauthorised access – McDonalds even has a combination lock on the toilet door, and you only get the combination if you ask and if you buy something.  This can be stressful to discover after you have climbed 2 flights of stairs to find a notice on the toilet door telling you this.  Other establishments have a token.  There are public toilets at the Bahnhof which cost €2 (a bit over A$3), although men can enjoy a €0.50 discount if they stand.  The good news is that there is a brochure you can pick up from the tourist information centre in the Bahnhof that lists the restaurants that open that open their toilets free to visitors.  Woot!

Day #122-126: Black Forest

[This one is for Chris]

After 8 days in France, the challenge in making our way with half-remembered school-day French was not enough, so we decided to try our luck with a new country and a new language: German(y).  You can do that in Europe.

After visiting the Le Halles markets in Dijon, we set off another 250km to our next B&B at Malsburg-Marzell, a little community of maybe a dozen houses in the Black Forest region of Germany: the south-west bit not far from either France or Switzerland.  Our accommodation was in a typical Black Forest farmhouse with Nigel and Helen, an expat English couple who speak English, German and Russian.  And maybe a just little bit of French.

These were fascinating people to meet.  Amongst other things, Nigel has a workshop that any man would die for, while Helen knits socks (and does so much more)!

One of the main occupations in the area is as foresters and providing fire wood ready for winter is a year round occupation.  The serious woodpiles we saw gave us an idea of just how cold it is in this region in winter.

The following morning saw us awakened early by the village bells, which were literally right outside our bedroom window.

The village bells ring daily at 7am, 11am, and 7pm for what seems like several minutes, apparently to stir the villagers from their beds, from the fields for lunch, and from the fields for dinner, or something like that as no one seems to know for sure [Chris?]. There is no clock face, just bells: not the melodic carillons of Belgium and Nederlands, nor the genteel ones of England (I hope I’m not disturbing you, but …), nor delicate French bells, but good solid German bells that defy being ignored (it is 7am and you will get up and go to work).  I am grateful that our hosts had warned us about them the night before, otherwise I would have been in the street in my nightclothes looking for the fire and a bucket to put it out with!

It had been wet in the preceding weeks so Helen and Nigel advised us against setting out for any long walks in the forest unless we were well prepared and very keen.  They were helpful with other wet weather friendly suggestions.

Day #123 saw us on the road to Weil am Rhein (pronounced vile am rhine) to visit the VitraHaus and campus.  Haven’t heard of it? Neither had I, but it was recommended by Helen as an interesting place to go, and it was certainly a change from our diet of medieval towns, museums and art galleries.  Vitra is a sort of mecca for great design with world famous products.  We had coffee in their cafeteria which had the most amazingly amazingly comfortable kitchen chairs by Jasper Morrison (I think).  We looked later and the chairs were €300 each.  You can also order an Eames lounge and watch it being assembled by an artisan.

Besides the chairs and other products, the Vitra campus itself was like a museum of architecture with works by people like Álvaro Siza (Portugal), Zaha Hadid (Iraq-Britain), Tadao Ando (Japan) and Frank Gehry (Canada).  An industrial workplace done right, where attention was on the result rather than the cost.  Amazing.  We did a guided tour of the campus, and were entertained for the entire two hours.  I’ll put a few pictures here to break up the text, but you should checkout the link in this paragraph for all the information: they have better photos and accurate descriptions.  You can probably tell I was really impressed.

Make sure you checkout the factory building by SANAA!

We left Vitra late, but headed 7km across the border to Basel for a bit of a quick look-see.  Did you know that the Rhine goes all the way to Switzerland, and is navigable all the way to Basel? If you have done a Rhine River cruise you probably stopped in Basel for the day.

In Basel we found out what canny people the Swiss are.  They have joined the EU but not adopted the euro as a their currency; however many bars and restaurants will accept the same number of euros as the bill is in Swiss Francs.  With the exchange rate that makes them a tidy 10% profit on each transaction.  Reversely fuel and most goods are quite expensive in Switzerland so they have no qualms about driving over the border to do their shopping in Germany.

Day #124 saw us up visiting the morning markets are nearby Kanden with Helen.  Somehow, we didn’t take any pictures of the market, but I do have one of Kanden …

… and one of my morning tea: a nussschnecke, which was probably more interesting (at least for me).

Following the markets, we ventured to Freiburg (pronounced fry-berg),  known for its medieval minster and Renaissance university, as well as for being the sunniest and warmest city in Germany but failing to live up to that reputation the day of our visit.  By the time we drove there and found a carpark, it was time for lunch, so we settled into a cafe on the Rathausplatz (town hall square) which had not one by nine menus and watched people getting married at the town hall while we ate lunch.

As promised the local minster (cathedral), started in 1200, was impressive both inside and out, despite being under renovation.

Freiburg is a pretty town, but it was a dull day and we spent much of the afternoon dodging showers, so retreated home with a can of Serbian bean soup for dinner.  That night, Morag pleaded to the Gods via Facebook for a fine day and remarkably her cry was answered.

Day #125 dawned relatively bright and sunny so we set off to find a cable car that went up Belchen, the third highest mountain in the Black Forest.  Getting lost on the way we stopped at a country inn at Hausen im Wiesental for coffee only to find that lunch was being served and there didn’t see any arguing with the waitress, who was well in her 70s.  We had a hearty German Sunday 3-course lunch despite ordered small portions of everything.  This was ein kleines Bier (a small beer) …

… and this was the first course salad (we had one each).

Morag caused much laughter amongst the aging staff by trying to translate Sorry, we are from Australia, we don’t speak German very poorly from our English/German dictionary, then trying to draw a kangaroo on the paper place mat for emphasis.

Back on the road with only minor detours thanks to Mademoiselle Janette (our GPS), we found the Belchen Seilbahn base-station and caught the cablecar to the top to enjoy glorious views over the Black Forest.  The cablecar services ski fields in winter and walkers and tourists like us in summer.  If we had not bought return tickets we would have walked back down as many families were.

Like many places in Europe walking is a major past time in the summer months.  We Australians are definitely spoilt to have access to the sun all year round: in Europe, it seems to be a matter of making the most of good weather when you have the fortunate to have it.

Day #114-118: Normandy and Brittany

It has long been Morag’s dream to visit Mont St Michel since reading about it as a child.  We were spending several nights in this area so were pleased to find our accommodation lived up to its promise and was a traditional French gîte or holiday house in a country orchard at the wonderfully named San Quentin-sur-la-homme.  Our hosts were Solange and Francoise; a delightful couple possibly in their early 70s (who can tell?). They had a stone cottage across the orchard.  They speak no English and we have a little of the French we learnt at school many years ago.  However, despite this we managed to communicate and have them tell us where we would find the nearest supermarket and each day they were delighted to hear where we had been.

Gîtes are self catering holiday accommodation and ours was a rustic gem.  It may not have been 5-star or a suite everyone but we thought it was lovely.  In England you would call this building method “Tudor style” but as the Tudors didn’t reign outside England I am not sure what you would call this: maybe timber and plaster?  We have no idea of the age of the little house but can only guess it might have been an early farm house.  It was one big room and had everything we could need including a gas stove with the gas bottle cleverly hidden in a wine barrel.  Solange had even stocked the fridge with basics, provided fresh flowers, home-made confiture and also a bottle of their own home-pressed apple juice.  The local boulangerie was a little over a kilometre away, where we could buy fresh bagettes and pain-au-chocolat (€1.20) each morning.

After many days of less favourable weather we were pleased to wake up the next morning to the most glorious day.  Mont St Michel is visible from some distance and it was quite exciting seeing it for the first time.  It is located on a small island in the mouth of the Couesnon River in the English Channel (hmmm: I wonder what the French call it), and is reputed to have the largest tides in Europe – something like 14m between high and low water!  This makes it a natural haven, and the island has been inhabited since ancient times, and been the home of a monastery that gives the island its name since the 8th century.  Arguably, it’s also one of Europe’s most recognizable landmarks.

Because of 3 million plus visitors each year, Mont St. Michel is well organised with extensive carparks and  shuttle bus service and/or walking path across a bridge to the Mont.    The island is about 600m from shore, and whilst it is possible to walk to it across mudflats when the tide is out, it is highly recommended that you do so only with a guide due to the gutters cut into the flats and the speed at which the tide comes in.  Oh, and bring a spare pair of shoes!This view is from the top of the Mont back over the mudflats at low tide – the black dots in the centre foreground are people!

According to legend, the first church of St. Michel was built in the 8th century by St. Aubert, the bishop of nearby Avranches .   Apparently, the Archangel Michael appeared to Aubert in 708 and instructed him to build a church on the island, but Aubert repeatedly ignored the instruction until Michael burned a hole in the bishop’s skull with his finger, then he got the message.  Sound like a myth?  Well, Aubert’s skull is preserved in Saint-Gervais Basilica in Avranches, so you can judge for yourself.

The current-day Mont St. Michel is a single windy alleyway from the base of the island to the monastery at the top, passing you by a variety of eateries, accommodation and tourist geegaw vendors.  It is not a place for anyone with a mobility difficulty, claustrophobia or a pram.

The history of Mont St. Michel, spiritual, political and architectural, is fascinating, but I will point you at Wikipedia and other sources for a rendition that is likely to be accurate.  Instead, I will just leave you with a couple of pictures to give you a taste of the place.

If you are in this corner of the world, Mont St. Michel is a well-recommended destination where you can easily spend a day.  We would also recommend taking a guided tour of the monastery: the tour that was advertised to take 1:15 actually took nearly two hours, but was fascinating throughout due to the enthusiasm of the English-speaking French guide.  There were moments of unintended comedy when his uncontrollable accent made discussions about pilgrims coming to Mont St. Michel sound a lot like penguins coming to Mont St. Michel, which left us with visions of them waddling their way across the mudflats.

Perhaps not the sort of vision than the archangel Michel intended.

On day #116, we took a side-trip to the island of Jersey.  The trip involved driving to the port of Granville, where we had to wait for an hour before a supercilious Frenchmen could decide whether he would deign to sell us tickets because we didn’t make a booking.  Between the driving and the waiting and the two-hour boat trip, I think we spent more time traveling than we spent in Jersey.  Perhaps it was the traveling or the weather which was less than impressive, but I was underwhelmed by Jersey.  For all the talk of the money that these channel islands are haven for, Jersey seemed just a little tired and rundown.   Maybe we needed to be there for much longer (five or six hours is  hardly enough time) and out of the main town of St Helier to appreciate Jersey’s charms and maybe after the amazing day we had had Mont St Michel everything would fade by comparison.  Turns out neither of us could be bothered taking much in the way of photos to record the trip, excepting these.

In the afternoon, we took a two-hour somewhat-breezy if-you-look-to-the-left bus tour of the western half of the island, and were back in time to wait another hour for the return boat trip to Granville.

Jersey was so uninspiring that Jersey Immigration didn’t even bother making an appearance to stamp our passports on exit from the island.

On day #117, we took a trip into Avranches, for a walk around the market and morning tea on the square with delectable French pastries.

All this took just enough time to ensure that the Scriptorial, our actual destination, was closed for lunch.  Apart from other things, the Scriptorial houses a collection of the illuminated and hand-bound books created in the 12th century by the monks of Mont St. Michel in an act of devotion that saw upwards of 12 months for a monk to produce a single copy by hand in an environment with poor heating or lighting.  It is a miracle that these works have survived in such numbers, and it is not surprising that the Scriptorial does not permit photography, so no pictures for you.  There are pictures on their website, but no English outside of what Google can do, so perhaps you can have your own journey of discovery.

Avranches is a really pretty little town, and we surely could have spent more time there except we were destined for Saint-Malo.  Saint-Malo is a walled port city in nearby Brittany. It is a sub-prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine.  Traditionally, Saint-Malo was notorious for privateering, but today the city is a major tourist destination, and so the tradition is kept alive.  For all that, it’s still a very attractive and interesting place to visit.

Finally (for this post), on day #118, we ventured to Bayeux to take in the amazing Bayeux Tapestry,  which wasn’t actually made in Bayeux nor it is technically a tapestry.  The tapestry is 70m in length, and was created in the 1070’s in England for Bishop Odo, William the Conqueror’s half-brother, in order to record and remind the illiterate people of Bayeux of William’s success in vanquishing Harold, King of England, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.  Poor Harold was caught a bit off-guard, as he had been up north, dealing with those troublesome Scots, and had to rush back down to Hastings to defend against William.  All this was a bit fortunate for William, who before the battle was known as William the Bastard: William the Conqueror has a much nicer ring to it.

One scene early in the tapestry when William and Harold were still friends shows Harold rescuing William soldiers from the mud of Mont St. Michel.  Another later scene that seems relevant even today is of a woman and a child being made refugees as their house is destroyed so a battle field can be prepared for William and Harold’s to fight for their “honour”.

Again, it is miraculous that the tapestry has survived through two world wars and the French revolution in such great condition, and that it is available for the pubic to view in its entirety.  Sadly, the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux does no allow photograph, so no pictures for you.  Instead, here’s an related photo to keep you amused.

I suppose that the Battle of Hastings was indeed the original Game of Thrones.